Rating: 
Summary: Good Book For Bosses
Review: "How To Become A Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees" by Jeffrey J. Fox provides solid, highly-readable business lessons to help entrepreneurs improve their leadership and management skills.Fox says bosses should hire only 'A' players or people who have the potential to become 'A' players. Fox defines an 'A player' as someone combining attitude and ability. Fox says, while you might be able to groom a B player into an A player, you'll never be able to turn a C player into an A player. The best place for C players is with the competition. "Don't let mediocrity in the door," advises Fox, or it will spread throughout the organization. "Once mediocrity is pervasive, it is as hard to rid from the organization as it is to rid lice from a camel," writes Fox. Pointing out the huge cost of a mishire, including wasted training, damaged morale, and the missed opportunity of having the job done right, Fox suggests bosses adopt the motto of "Hire Slow, Fire Fast." In addition to doing full background checks and giving tests and extensive interviews when hiring, Fox recommends that all job roles ultimately serve the company's end customer. Fox writes: "It is the customer's money that funds paychecks, bonuses, health insurance, taxes, and everything else. Because it is the customer who pays the employees, then the employees-all employees, including the boss-work for the customer. Therefore, every single job in a company must be designed to get or keep customers." Once you've hired the right people for the right roles, you must let employees do their jobs and not micromanage or do the work yourself- Fox's motto: "Don't Hire a Dog and Bark Yourself." You must give employees adequate training and be sure they understand their responsibilities. Fox suggests bosses spend at least ten minutes each day teaching. Fox writes: "The great boss provides learning opportunities, new experiences, in-house and outside seminars, reading lists, on-the-job training, and hands-on instruction. The great boss knows that the best people are learners. ..." Fox tells us that many bosses spend too much time with poor-performing employees. He recommends bosses spend most of their time with their best employees. Fox writes: "Too many bosses are attracted to the problematical employees as moths to the flame. Too many bosses invest too much time with low-performing employees who deliver a low return on the time invested in them. Too many bosses under-invest in their best-performing people assets." In addition to developing the art of grooming employees for new roles in your company and fostering learning, Fox says you must be effective in delegating work. "If you are delegating without clear direction or without providing appropriate training, you are not delegating you are relegating-relegating the employee to error making and misperformance. If you delegate without a schedule for follow-up and inspection, you haven't delegated, you have abdicated," writes Fox. Fox says bosses don't get what they expect. They get what they inspect. Because everyone looks to the boss to set an example, if the boss isn't concerned about customer satisfaction, for example, the employees won't care about customer satisfaction either. "How To Become A Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees" contains many short and interesting stories about leadership. For example, Fox describes the owner of a construction contracting company who tried to lead by intimidation. The construction owner was rude and mean to everybody, and suppliers and employees alike didn't really care about his success. Instead of working effectively for him, employees weren't attentive to detail and made many costly "mistakes." Rather than earning $2 million on a $23 million construction project, the contractor lost $2 million and went out-of-business. Peter Hupalo, Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"
Rating:
Summary: Puts things into perspective
Review: "How to Become a Great Boss" is simple to read and allows you to formalize what you might already know. Many of the ideas/suggestions are instinctual characteristics of a good manager that Fox puts into words for all to understand. Very straight-forward tips. When finished reading the short chapters you get the message and have an idea on how to apply in real life. One of the best books I have read since becoming a Manager. Cuts through the BS and gives you direct advice.
Rating:
Summary: Again, Jeff Fox shows us how to get it done, the right way!
Review: Anybody who truly wants to be the right kind of leader will pay very close attention to the pearls of wisdom written by Mr. Fox. As with his previous books Mr. Fox not only provides a no-nonsense guide on how to succeed in the business world, but more importantly he shows us how to do it with honor and integrity. He makes it very clear that a real boss is first and foremost a teacher that guides his/her employees to be proud of their company and it's product by striving for excellence. I recommend this book, as well as all of Mr. Fox's other books, to those individuals that have decided not to accept mediocrity as a lifestyle. It's first-class reading, pure and simple.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable Perspectives on "Boss"
Review: Fox has written several other books, some of which I have reviewed. He continues to display a unique talent for focusing on a key point and then expressing it clearly and concisely. Unlike many other business authors, Fox may re-examine certain themes (e.g. appropriate mindsets for a decision-maker) but almost never recycles material. That is especially true of this volume in which he shares feedback for a rather long list of executives who are listed in the "Contributors" section. Many years ago, Sir Isaac Newton observed that "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." That is not to suggest that Fox is a a midget; rather, to suggest that he is an active and receptive student of those who -- in this instance -- are all great "bosses." A brief word about "boss." Obviously, few executives become a CEO but all executives -- directly or indirectly -- can have a profound impact on those for whom they are responsible. In this volume, Fox suggests what a "great boss" is...and isn't. He also explains why. He organizes his material within 50 brief but insightful chapters, followed by an "Epilogue," a series of personal statements by various senior-level executives which compellingly illustrate how and why "Great Bosses Beget Great Bosses." The inverse is also true: "Ineffective Bosses Beget Ineffective Bosses." For example, on a scale of 1-10, a 6 or 7 boss never hires a 9 or 10. Moreover, my own experience suggests that if and when a 6 or 7 inadvertently hires a 9 or 10 (or one with the capabilities to become one), the 6 or 7 either runs the 9 or 10 off or ensures that the development of that promising person is suppressed. "Great bosses" are never threatened by a 9 or 10. On the contrary, they only hire the best and the brightest. Fox urges his reader to spend supervisory time with the best people because "the top 10-20% of the employees [in any organization] deliver 70-80% of the results." Obviously, I think very highly of this slim but informative book. Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Buckingham and Coffman's First, Break All the Rules; Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee's Primal Leadership; Maister's Practice What You Preach; O'Toole's The Executive's Compass; Whyte's The Heart Aroused; and finally, Bossidy and Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Results.
Rating: 
Summary: Stale and Old
Review: I just don't get it. As a manager for many years, I came away from this book with a sense that I was being lead astray. The author is hardpressed to come to any sort of conclusions that are meaningful and he seems to just fill the pages with words. He might be a good typist, but as a writer he has much to be desired. There is also an ego problem here too. The word I is used so many times that I felt like the author was advertising himself, instead of trying to help managers like myself. This is not a good book!
Rating:
Summary: Not the least bit helpful
Review: I normally don't write reviews but I just read this book and I couldn't believe how much of a waste of money it was. Here's the book in a nutshell- Hire good employees and fire bad ones.
Rating: 
Summary: Advice with attitude
Review: Jeff Fox writes his chapters short and sweet, just how I like them. No drawn out, boring examples, just "in your face" advice that you should know. The draw back to this book is that it's mostly things I've read elsewhere. The advantage is that Fox says it more succinctly than others, so for the time-challenged, that is a nice perk. If you've already read dozens of books on management, you may not need to pick this up. If you're a new boss or having trouble with employees, this is probably a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: Advice with attitude
Review: Jeff Fox writes his chapters short and sweet, just how I like them. No drawn out, boring examples, just "in your face" advice that you should know. The draw back to this book is that it's mostly things I've read elsewhere. The advantage is that Fox says it more succinctly than others, so for the time-challenged, that is a nice perk. If you've already read dozens of books on management, you may not need to pick this up. If you're a new boss or having trouble with employees, this is probably a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: Advice with attitude
Review: Jeff Fox writes his chapters short and sweet, just how I like them. No drawn out, boring examples, just "in your face" advice that you should know. The draw back to this book is that it's mostly things I've read elsewhere. The advantage is that Fox says it more succinctly than others, so for the time-challenged, that is a nice perk. If you've already read dozens of books on management, you may not need to pick this up. If you're a new boss or having trouble with employees, this is probably a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: How to Be A Great Boss
Review: Jeffrey Fox, author and founder of Fox & Co., a premier marketing consulting firm in CT, defines a great boss as one that can stir and motivate individuals to increase organizational performance. Fox's success strategies include hiring the right talent with the right attitude to strengthen the organization's gene pool and suggests ways to keep the employees fired up.
Fox provides illustrations showing that employees model behaviors of their boss. For example, if the boss appears disinterested in customer retention, soon this phenomenon will engulf the entire organization. Great bosses must appear energetic and vigorous in order to attract employees with the same high mental and physical energy needed for competitive advantages.
Accountability must start with the boss. Everyone in a great organization knows who the under performers are. Great bosses try to groom all employees. However, if there is no positive return on the efforts after a period of time, the great boss makes the hard decision to terminate (with dignity) mediocre/incompetent performers who add no value to the growth and success of the organization. Using the stock market as an example, the author shows that a great boss knows the better returns come by spending the bulk of their coaching time with the highest performers. The author provides some great time examples.
Fox provides readers with suggestions regarding 'buy in' strategies of those individuals who have been outstanding performers but their skill sets are no longer needed. For example, Mickey Mantle overstayed his time. Mantle's lifetime batting average was .299, however, if Mantle had not played that last year, he would have had a lifetime average of .300.
Great bosses learn from mistakes, are principled, and are team builders, do not fear talent. They seek suggestions/different perspectives, let people do their jobs and seek to learn from their employees in order to grow the organization. Great bosses learn from complaints of disgruntled employees/customers by listening with respect, evaluating the message and considering complaints as 'gifts' of new perspectives/knowledge. Just as great athletes continue to learn of their weak areas, great bosses discipline themselves to learn every day and reward employees who grow intellectually as well.
The book provides readers tips/strategies on being a great boss which results in employees, the boss and the organization all emerging as winners.
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